BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
"U.S. youth say: End the Economic Blockade of Cuba!" That slogan was emblazoned on a colorful banner that identified the nearly 300-strong U.S. contingent during an August 5 march in Havana. Delegates from the United States and many other countries to the Cuba Lives! International Youth Festival joined half a million people in this massive show of support for the Cuban revolution.
The big-business press in the United States either ignored the march or reacted with dismay. But Militant reporters found that most Cubans and international guests they interviewed, undeterred by a torrential downpour just as the demonstration began, were heartened. "Cuba Vive!" proclaimed the August 16 Cuban weekly Granma International. The front-page headline, accompanied by a big picture of the crowd filling Havana's waterfront boulevard, captured this sentiment.
The march was the highlight of the week-long youth festival, which took place in Havana and other Cuban provinces August 1-7. This gathering brought together youth from around the world who are repelled by the evils of capitalism. It was an important initial step toward building an international revolutionary youth movement.
The event gave a boost to efforts to defend the Cuban revolution in the United States and around the world. Hundreds of young people who were new to politics got a firsthand glimpse of the Cuban revolution. Following their visit, most of these youth decided to get involved for the first time or step up their participation in protests and educational activities to tell the truth about Cuba. And many were attracted to communism as a result of the trip and returned to their countries ready to do something to change the world.
In the United States, for example, dozens of youth are now writing articles for newspapers, participating in radio shows, and speaking at report-back meetings urging a big turnout for the October 21 march in New York and other regional and local actions on October 14 to oppose Washington's policy toward Cuba.
Some 1,300 delegates from 67 countries, including 200 from Cuba, attended. The biggest group came from the United States, with some 260 registered - a decisive factor in the success of the festival.
Bringing the world into Cuba
Leaders of the Union of Young Communists (UJC), one of
the main Cuban youth organizations that sponsored the event,
crisscrossed the globe in the four preceding months to build
the festival - which was called in April - and to bring the
stark reality of the capitalist world into Cuba. The UJC
sent delegations to Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia,
several countries in Central America and the Caribbean, the
Philippines, Poland, a few countries in western Europe, New
Zealand, and the United States, among others.
Kenia Serrano, the head of international relations of the Federation of University Students (FEU), did a speaking tour of the United States in March and April. "I am elated to see many of the young people I met on my trip here at the festival," she said in an interview.
The FEU leader said her organization, also a sponsor of the Cuba Lives gathering, arranged speaking engagements on several campuses in Cuba after she returned from the United States, "to let youth here know what I found out by meeting farm workers in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, strikers at Caterpillar in Illinois, and young people demonstrating for abortion rights."
The largest delegations at the festival were marked by the fact that many who came were not affiliated to any political organization.
This was true, for example of the U.S. group and of the second-largest international delegation, which came from France. Of the 125 youth from that country, 70 were members of the Movement of Young Communists, which is associated with the French Communist Party. The rest, however, were either active in Cuba solidarity organizations or came on their own. The same was true of the delegations from Spain, Brazil, El Salvador, Italy, Canada, Mexico, Chile, and the United Kingdom.
The smallest groups came from several African countries, most of which had a couple of delegates. South Africa was represented by the president of the African National Congress Youth League.
Among youth who didn't belong to any political organizations one often found the most enthusiastic response to the revolutionary politics presented at the festival. "In my generation we need symbols, symbols of struggle," said Yanelis Delgado, a 20-year-old student from Ecuador. "And for me that symbol is Cuba."
By the end of the week-long event, many more came to identify the socialist revolution in Cuba as the best example in the fight for sovereignty and human dignity today.
"Only Cuba has gained real independence," said Kai Moos, a 19-year-old student from Germany.
This response weighed heavily in the decision of the leadership of the UJC and the Communist Party of Cuba to offer the Caribbean country as the site of another worldwide youth festival for the summer of 1997.
Delegates stayed at the homes of Cuban families in Havana and seven other provinces, participated in discussions and debates in eight different workshops and joined the August 5 march. The demonstration took place on the anniversary of huge pro-revolution mobilizations that were sparked by antigovernment disturbances on Havana's waterfront a year earlier.
Cuban president Fidel Castro addressed the delegates August 6 during the final session of the conference.
"The point Fidel made, that capitalism and social development don't go together, was right on the mark," said Facundo Aznarez, an Argentine youth who lives in Madrid, after Castro's closing speech. "He's right, capitalism only equals plunder and joblessness. Argentina is a case in point. And even in Spain, unemployment is more than 20 percent." His reaction to the address by the Cuban president was typical among many delegates. (For the full text of Castro's August 6 speech see the September 18 Militant).
`Honored by your presence'
Castro and other leaders of the Communist Party and the
UJC repeatedly pointed to the political importance of the
participation of international delegates in the festival.
"I join those who have expressed their deepest and most sincere gratitude for your presence; we truthfully feel honored, we feel happy and we feel encouraged," Castro said in his August 6 speech.
"We will now continue our fight with more confidence than ever, knowing that there are so many good and honest people in the world who understand us, who wish us success, who want to help us, and to put a grain of sand here and there."
During the festival, Castro and other Cuban leaders emphasized several times the importance of the largest group of delegates coming from the United States, despite the travel ban by Washington.
A year ago the Clinton administration tightened the travel restrictions by revoking the right of Cubans living in the United States to visit their families on the island without Washington's permission and to send virtually any cash remittances to relatives there. The White House made it harder for travel by journalists. It also began requiring licenses from the Treasury Department for those traveling for professional research.
The Clinton regulations specifically reject licenses for "general study tours; general orientation visits; student class field trips; youth camps," and "research for personal satisfaction only." Earlier this year, U.S. officials hinted they might consider easing travel for academics and other professionals.
In a July 26 speech, Castro blasted the U.S. travel policy. "They do not allow U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba, to get to know the island and to have a holiday here," he said, "but they are prepared to send sociologists, philosophers, historians, Cuba specialists, English professors, and other academics to `enlighten' us." This policy, Castro underlined, is pursued by those "who would like to destroy us from within."
Most delegates were picked up politically by Castro's speeches and the massive August 5 march in support of the revolution. On the other hand, those events, added to a stabilization of the Cuban economy for the first time in five years, caused a sour reaction in the big-business press in the United States and elsewhere, which concluded that the prospects for the demise of the revolutionary government are not on the horizon.
"A year after boat exodus, threat to Castro dissipates," was a headline in the August 15 New York Times. The article was referring to the so-called rafters crisis last summer, when thousands of Cubans, who wanted to immigrate but couldn't get visas from the U.S. government, took to the sea in hopes of reaching Florida.
U.S. delegation
The U.S. delegation at the festival represented the
largest and most diverse number of young people from this
country going to Cuba for such a trip in decades.
A number of different U.S. groups organized youth to go to the festival. Some 170 traveled with the Cuba Information Project, which is based in New York. About 20, mostly high school students, were organized by the July 26 Coalition in Boston. The San Francisco-based Global Exchange sent 16 people. A dozen members of the American Friends Service Committee who had been in Cuba since mid-July also participated. Others traveled on their own.
In addition, members of Cuban-American groups - such as Casa de las Américas in New York and the Alliance of Workers in the Cuban Community in Miami - were in Cuba during the festival and joined the August 5 march. The Venceremos Brigade, which organizes annual trips to Cuba from the United States, had a contingent of 80 people doing voluntary work in the provinces prior to and during the youth gathering. Its members also joined the August 5 demonstration.
Most made the trip through the Bahamas, Canada, or Mexico because of the travel restrictions. A majority on the U.S. delegation had press credentials and went to Cuba on editorial assignment from campus newspapers and other media to cover the festival.
With all its diversity, the U.S. delegation functioned in a coordinated manner. During four meetings, attended by many of its members, U.S. delegates discussed how to divide up between the eight workshops, what to do in case of harassment by U.S. Customs on their return, and how to report back their experiences in the United States.
In one of their meetings, U.S. delegates discussed how to identify their group during the August 5 march. Some said the contingent should be distinguished by carrying the U.S. flag at the front, as groups from other countries were planning to do. Many others, however, argued that the Stars and Stripes has long served as the symbol of U.S. imperialism and for that reason should not be used.
In the end, a big majority decided to march behind a large banner identifying the contingent as the U.S. youth against the economic blockade. They also decided there would be no censorship of signs, placards, or flags at the demonstration. A few did march with the U.S. flag.
Trip parlayed into activism at home
"I have never experienced such a strong sense of
community as I experienced in Cuba," wrote Amanda Ulman, a
student at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, who
went on the trip. "The spirit of the revolution lives in the
people of Cuba. The only way for the United States to crush
the revolution is to starve everyone to death."
With these comments, Ulman concluded her "Your Turn" column in the September 5 issue of the Ball State Daily News, the student newspaper on campus. She is now actively building the October actions against U.S. policy toward Cuba at her school.
Dozens of articles by festival participants have appeared in U.S. newspapers. These include major dailies like the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah; campus publications like The Daily Cougar, the student paper at the University of Houston; community newspapers like the Portuguese-language Independente of Newark, New Jersey, and the Community Focus in Delaware; and labor publications like the Union Advocate in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In addition, the trip has generated articles and programs based on interviews with festival participants in many other media. Among them are the Houston Chronicle; the Washington Post; El Daily News, the bilingual publication of a major New York paper; and numerous TV stations.
Participants have reported similar experiences in Canada and other countries.
J-C Calderón, a young architect from New York, spoke on a radio program at WBAI radio in Manhattan about his experiences on the trip. He traveled to Cuba with the group organized by Global Exchange. Since his return he has also become active in the October 21 Coalition in the city, which is organizing a march in New York on that date to oppose Washington's economic blockade of Cuba.
Calderón will also be speaking at a September 16 report- back meeting at Casa de las Américas in New York. Similar meetings have been organized throughout the United States.
Local Cuba coalitions in many U.S. cities helped recruit youth to go and raise the necessary funds for travel. This in turn has provided new lifeblood for several of these coalitions, with many young people joining on their return.
Adriana Sánchez, a student at the University of Minnesota, said attendance at meetings of the Twin Cities Network on Cuba jumped after a report-back event in Minneapolis by some 15 festival participants.
"We had our best meeting on September 7, with more than 20 people there, including many of the young people who went to Cuba," she said. "Before the festival we would be lucky to get 5-10 people together." The Twin Cities Network, which helped organize a delegation of 17 from Minnesota to the Cuba Lives event, is now focusing on building the October protests.
Sánchez, who spoke for the U.S. delegation at the closing session of the festival, has written a series of three articles for the weekly La Prensa de Minnesota, urging a big turnout for the October actions.
Staying with Cuban families
"The family experience was the best opportunity to
really interact and to see what life was like for the Cuban
people," said Evan Daniel, who visited Cuba for the first
time. He was speaking at an August 19 report-back meeting in
San Francisco. Many other youth expressed similar views on
this experience on the trip.
Each delegate stayed with a Cuban family for three days in one of eight provinces where social events and workshops on various topics were held. Thousands more families volunteered to house delegates that the 1,300 needed, showing the eagerness of many working people in Cuba to take an active part in the gathering.
"We've proved that Cuba has the biggest hotel capacity in the world - the Cuban people," said Luis Alberto González Nieto, second secretary of the UJC.
This was a conscious attempt by the organizers of the event to reach out and involve as many Cubans as possible in the revolutionary politics of the festival.
"Between the visits in the provinces, staying with the families, and the daily coverage in the press, up to 3 million Cubans got involved or got a piece of Cuba Lives," said Leyde Rodríguez Hernández, a member of the international relations department of the UJC in Havana, who participated in the workshop on democracy and participation in Villa Clara.
While the themes of the workshops varied from childhood to culture and employment, discussion on world politics and how to advance the defense of the Cuban revolution worldwide took place at all of them.
In several of these commissions, delegates agreed to continue organizing speaking tours of Cuban youth in their countries. UJC and FEU leaders are now scheduled to tour Canada, Iceland, the United Kingdom, and Sweden this fall, among other countries.
Delegates from the Cuban Coordinating Committee in Spain, the Proletarian Anti-Imperialist Movement in Italy, the Young Socialists, Global Exchange, and other groups in the United States, and several organizations in Latin America, agreed to coordinate efforts to build an international youth brigade to Cuba in the summer of 1996.
Participants also pledged to organize material aid campaigns and construction brigades when they returned to repair or build child-care centers, schools, and recreational facilities in several Cuban provinces.
Many delegates exchanged addresses, phone numbers, and E- mail addresses to keep in touch and collaborate on these projects.
World youth festival
Most delegates responded enthusiastically to the offer
made by Fidel Castro that Cuba could host a world youth
festival.
"The youth of the world will meet again, and if they can't meet somewhere else, or if a country doesn't offer itself for a festival organized like this one, then a world festival can be organized," Castro said in concluding his speech at the August 5 march.
"What's lacking is not money, what is needed is modesty, generosity, good will, like that of the families that hosted you, like that of the neighborhoods that welcomed you and greeted you everywhere. Millions are not needed, so it can be organized like this festival, in which each person made an effort and paid for their own trip.
"After this experience, if world festivals don't continue, then here in Cuba, under a special period and a blockade, we have enough generosity, common sense and organizational capacity to hold an event of this kind."
The last time a world youth festival took place was in Pyongyang, North Korea, in 1989. That gathering was sponsored by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY).
WFDY, founded in 1945 in London, was for decades composed primarily of youth groups affiliated with Communist parties that looked to Moscow for political direction and sustenance. The 13 world festivals it sponsored were to a large degree financed by these parties.
The disintegration of the regimes and parties that controlled the governments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union beginning in 1989 brought rapid changes among the youth affiliates of WFDY as well.
The 13th assembly of member organizations of WFDY, which took place in December 1990 in Athens, Greece, made a number of important changes to the constitution and policies of the federation. A previous practice that a member organization from any country could veto affiliation of another youth group from the same country was dropped.
A number of new organizations joined WFDY as a result, including the Young Socialists in the United States. The Athens assembly, after vigorous debate, reaffirmed the anti- imperialist character of WFDY "as an essential part of its identity."
This was important since a number of member groups began challenging the anti-imperialist character of the federation and turned to social democracy or to other bourgeois parties. Komsomol, for example, the youth organization of the Communist Party in the former Soviet Union, supported the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991.
Following an unsuccessful coup attempt in the former USSR in August 1991, Komsomol dissolved its national structure. Representatives of its successor, the Coordinating Committee of Republican and Regional Youth Organizations, resigned from all leadership bodies of WFDY in 1992. A number of other youth groups affiliated with former pro-Moscow Communist parties did the same.
WFDY, however, has been politically unable to organize another world youth festival.
In his August 6 speech at the closing of Cuba Lives, Castro said that up to 10,000 people can be organized to come to such a world event in Cuba. After the Havana gathering, UJC leaders said the tentative date for such a worldwide festival is the summer of 1997.
Laura Garza, a staff writer for the Militant who participated in the Cuba Lives! festival, and Diana Newberry in Brooklyn and Brock Satter in New York - both leaders of the Young Socialists who participated in the international gathering - contributed to this article.